Students help raise suicide awareness

After a Lincoln Land Community College student died in November, the school’s students are trying to raise awareness on suicide prevention to help others who may be going through a bad situation.

The students at the Jacksonville campus dressed in purple and gave out purple ribbons Tuesday to honor their friend and help bring awareness to the increasing number of suicides, especially among suicides.

In 2014, there were 11 suicides, up from the one in 2013, and six in 2012. Nine of of those who died in 2014 were under the age of 40.

Operations Analyst MaryJane Million said this year there have been so many suicides and they wanted to bring awareness to growing numbers.

“We didn’t want people to forget about all that has happened, so that we can keep helping people going forward,” Million said. “We want to reach out to anyone in need.”

Student Activity President Nathanael Herbert said while the they were thinking about classmate Billie Smith, they don’t want to focus on the pain and sadness that followed, but on hope, freedom, and life.

“We just want our students and the people who are involved with this school to realize the significance of this past year and the care that we want to show to them,” Herbert said. “We don’t want to look at the past, necessarily, and the pain and hurt. We want to focus on hope and freedom and life.”

As a show of support for the rise in awareness, many students wore purple or wore a purple ribbon.

“It’s one of those small things that everyone can do for a a greater purpose, for a lot greater reason,” Brown said.

Brown was affected when Smith died and felt this was a good way to honor him.

Throughout the week, the students, faculty and staff will be able to write letters to one another to show care and support.

When they originally thought about what they could do to help raise awareness, they thought of the letters because they could offer comfort to someone.

“When you take time to write a letter, that in itself shows care and that shows an initiative, a desire to tell someone that you love them,” he said. “In writing these letters, it creates a cool system within our school of showing love, showing care and even connecting us as a group.”

Also, knowing someone cares about you can offer some comfort and maybe change how their day is going.

Herbert said at college, students are preparing for the business world, but they can also learn about the burdens of the heart.

At noon today, a representative from Passavant Area Hospital will be at the campus to present information about psychiatric health.

Also, the college will be showing the 2009 movie “A Reason to Live” at 7 p.m. Thursday.

“Sure we are taking on a sore subject, but the focus isn’t on pain, and the death and the hurt,” he said. “The focus is hope, freedom, and life. The reality is, in any case, if you focus on the negatives, what’s your mindset going to be on? It’s going to be on the negatives. “

“As we’re going about this week, we want to focus on the beauty of life, the beauty of what is inside of us, the hope that we can have, the freedom that we can have, and the life we can have,” he added.